Years ago at a conference in Amman, a few Israelis and Egyptians were sitting together chatting. One of the Israelis was asked when he had last visited Egypt. "On October 16, 1973," he answered, somewhat humorously. "And without a passport. I crossed the Suez Canal with my unit until we withdrew a few months later. But now we have peace; I don't mean to insult anyone."

A minor commotion ensued. That never happened, some of the Egyptians responded. One of them, a retired general, said to his friends: "Technically, the Israeli is not lying. We drew them across the canal in a planned ambush, to destroy them." Turning to the Israeli, he continued: "If you won, why did you withdraw from the west side of the canal and then from all of Sinai on our terms?"

Last week Egypt marked the glorious "October victory," as it has for the past 39 years. President Mohammed Morsi awarded medals to officers who fought in that war. And the crowds cheered. In contrast, the Israeli media, as it has done for the past 39 years, marked the Israel Defense Forces' victory by continuing its campaign of wailing, searching for failures and breast-beating over the sins we committed. But mainly over the sins we did not commit.

I have claimed for years that the victory celebrations are an excellent example of a basic aspect of Egypt: life in an imaginary world. And imaginary myths lead to distortions in government, the economy, health, education, the status of women and minorities, and to the other misfortunes typical of Egypt and most Arab regimes.

In contrast, I have noted that the Yom Kippur War was the greatest victory a Jewish army has ever achieved.

[snip] Ezov does a fine job of describing the difficulties the complex operation entailed: The IDF had no experience negotiating a water obstacle; contrary to all the planning, the operation did not commence at the waterline itself but rather kilometers from there, and penetrating the Egyptian deployment and clearing the crossing zone became the main effort; all of the movement to the bridgehead took place on the first night along a single route, which created a massive traffic jam; and the units that had practiced transporting the bridging to the waterline were fighting elsewhere, so the ones that ultimately carried out the job ran into trouble because they were inexperienced. As a result, the first bridge, the pontoon bridge, was laid over the canal 48 hours after the operation began and the second bridge, the roller-bridge, 33 hours later. The plan for the Abirei Lev operation called for both bridges to become operational on the first night of the operation... [/snip] -- On one of Israel's most controversial battle campaigns, review by Uri Bar. Caption:Yom Kippur War, laying a bridge over the Suez Canal. Photo by IDF Spokesman's Office

The 87th. Armored Recon. Battalion: The Unit that lead the way to the Suez Canal crossing and the turning point in the 1973 War -- [snip] The 87th, still attached to the 14th armored brigade, was ordered to lead the attack, taking advantage of its experience from the scouting mission on October 9th. Shortly before H-Hour, which was set at 1800 hrs, the commanding officer of the 14th Brigade, Colonel Amnon Reshef, addressed the warriors of the 87th. He emphasized the importance of the unit's mission -- to lead the brigade, the division, Southern Command, and in fact the entire IDF in an attack that could (and indeed would) change the course of the war, transferring the battle into the enemy's homeland encircling the 3rd Egyptian army and launching pressure on the 2nd army, which was stuck in its October 14th position. The Colonel's address was recorded by a military correspondant attached to the 14th brigade and the recording has been preserved until today.

The 87th was ordered to reach the area designated for the launching of the Canal crossing by going westward along the sector border between the two Egyptian armies (the same path the unit had identified on its scouting mission), then northwards along the road that runs parallel to the Canal, and finally westwards towards the bank of the Canal in a three-pronged movement. "B" company was ordered to lead the unit and to take up the northernmost position, "C" company would follow and hold the center, and finally "A" company, accompanied by the medical and ordnance platoons, would deploy in the southern position, in the actual area of the Canal crossing. Three tank and three paratrooper battalions were to follow the 87th and attack the southern flank of the 2nd Army. The paratroopers of the 247th brigade would follow to establish the bridgehead on the western bank of the Canal.

The initial phase of the operation caught the Egyptians by total surprise, and the 87th reached its designated positions undiscovered, receiving only sporadic and uncoordinated fire, mainly from small arms. [/snip]

I think that this has been misnamed. Israel suffers from post-Camp David syndrome, not post-Yom Kippur.

The UN proved back in 1975 that it served the lingering Nazi (and allied Islamic) agenda when it declared Zionism to be “racism”. It is to the USA’s national shame that the UN was not destroyed then and there.

That’s what the USA got for not staying longer to de-Nazify both Germany and Austria . . . how is it that anyone over here thought that the process could be handed over to the natives a mere two years after the war? who subsequently unilaterally declared it “over” (not “complete”) three years after that?

That was as done as it could be, given that everyone just wanted to go home after the war, and the USSR remained in force just over the frontier — the key postwar move to make was to snuff them as they pop their heads up into prominent political positions.

Sounds like the Morgenthau Plan was the lesser of two evils, albeit with the customary “hindsight 20/20” perspective. Also sounds like the Cold War was kicked off due to underground Nazi intrigue, putting a wedge between former allies.

The Greek empire was the bronze part of the statue (belly and legs of the statue) that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. Fighting against the legs of iron (the Roman Empire) was a whole different kettle of fish, as well as the prophecy in Daniel 2:40 associated with it (that it would smash every other surrounding nation-state).

Brandt had a completely infiltrated subversive administration; and Adenauer rejected the division of Germany and cut relations with any nation (except the Soviets) which recognized EG, so they had little to do with each other (other than real or claimed anti-Nazi sentiments). Brandt wanted to surrender as much as necessary in order to reunite Germany.

The EEC “Common Market” paralleled A’s view that Germany had to integrate with the rest of Europe. Europe has been trying to integrate the USSR / neo-Soviet Russia into its economic system since the 1950s, and that integration effort had a lot to do with the economic development of the post-war (particularly late) Soviet era.

The US engineered a leak of tainted technology to the USSR for its construction of that huge long natural gas pipeline from Siberia to western Europe, and the explosions from that brilliant piece of sabotage could be seen from orbit. The OPEC countries viewed w European hydrocarbon purchases from the USSR/Russia as a long-term threat, and beginning early in the 21st c started calculating their crude prices to keep crude price-stable in Euros though still officially priced in US dollars.

The EEC was not about Germany reintegrating with the rest of Europe, but vice-versa. The Treaty of Rome reads just like the modern-day treaties on European Union, down to the intent to create the infamous ever closer union between the peoples of Europe, the nature of which was really expounded upon by Adenauer cabinet members such as then Minister of Commerce Hans Christian Seebohm:

Does free Europe want to join Germany? Germany is the heart of Europe, and the limbs must adjust themselves to the heart, not the heart to the limbs.

And subsequent to that, Margaret Thatcher observed the results back in 1995:

You have not anchored Germany to a unified Europe You have anchored Europe to a newly unified and dominant Germany. In the end my friends, you will find it will not work.

The EUs riding a fine line between their notions of solidarity and nationalism. They have to keep the people placated until such time as they no longer need to (e.g. their plans to establish a Europe-wide police force and military, and of course their surveillance state via the Stockholm Program).

And of course, they keep the propaganda going that the so-called Palestinians are victims and the Israelis are trying to wipe them out (in spite of the fact that the population of Palestinians keeps growing).

Very close fought thing. I’ve heard Egyptian Officers saying that they were preparing a trap for the Israelis. I don’t believe it. It would have made more sense to spring a trap in the Sinai. Spring a trap in Egypt? With Cairo so close? Nope.
One of the less known stories from that war is that it produced some real changes in the US Army. General Donn Starry is one of America’s least known heroes.

30
posted on 10/14/2012 8:22:34 AM PDT
by blueunicorn6
("A crack shot and a good dancer")

The Egyptian officers of that time had their asses paddled. The only thing that stopped the annihilation of that trapped Egyptian army was Sadat’s capitulation to a (delayed and overdue) ceasefire agreement. The Syrians had harangued him into straying from his battle plan (which he’d kept to himself) and sending the Egyptian assault out beyond the SAM umbrella to take pressure off the collapsing Syrian invasion.

In the course of the war, Syria sent nearly 1400 tanks against Israel, and left with a bit more than 300, nearly 1000 lost tanks.

Sadat’s original strategy was to neutralize the Bar-Lev line and cross into the Sinai over multiple bridgeheads simultaneously. A German company had sold Egypt high pressure firefighting equipment designed for high-rise, despite the fact that in 1973 pretty much the only high-rise was pharaonic in age; the water was shot all the way across the Canal to obscure the vision of, then bury alive, the Israeli bunkers. The SAM units were left west of the Canal, and the Egyptian advance was stopped by plan about ten miles into the Sinai (the practical limit of the SAMs). Unprecedented numbers of recoilless antitank weapons went east across the Canal.

For an Arab army, the Sinai crossing was a masterpiece of planning, training, and execution. But when Sadat strayed from his original plan, the much better Israel armed forces could turn the tables. When attacking the dug-in Egyptian invasion force, the IDF had a hard time, not least because the SAM umbrella had an impact on IAF’s ability to provide ground support.

The dogfights went mostly the IAF’s way — Soviet pilots in Egypt to support and train routinely badmouthed the Egyptian pilots; when they went up themselves and got their asses handed to them by the IAF, the Egyptians weren’t shy about making jokes at their expense.

I described how Eleanor Dulles (the sister of Allen and John Foster Dulles) discovered information about Nelson Rockefeller working with the Nazis that was used to coerce him into agreeing to deliver the Latin American bloc of votes at the U.N. for the establishment of Israel in exchange for the Israelis not pursuing escaped Nazis after the Second World War. But do you really believe the Dulles brothers were so clumsy as to leave carelessly such information laying about for their sister to find? Perhaps this was actually an example of misdirection, and the guarantee of non-pursuit of Nazis after World War II was the goal all along, because such non-pursuit was critical to the fulfillment of the secret Nazi plan today.

32
posted on 10/14/2012 7:38:01 PM PDT
by Sheapdog
(chew the meat and spit out the bones)

Which is what the Communists claimed. Those in the Progressive Party camp in 1948. Our rapid withdrawal from Europe after the war left the whole west exposed to a Red Army that did not go home. The Soviet Union from its start was a military state, and so Stalin did not face any bring em home cry from the people.

Solzhenitsyn recounts in the Gulag Archilpelago that all the Russian soldiers that traveled West and experienced the fruits of the West were for the most part rewarded with a rewarding stay in their archipelago. How’s that for bringing them home? Communism has a sick way of rewarding it’s unwitting sheep and those caught in it’s grasp. The people wouldn’t have cried to bring ‘em home if they knew what was awaiting. But I regress many did and during Eisenhower’s Operation Keelhaul hundred’s of thousands chose death while US soldiers rounded them up for repatriation as we even broke many promises to our allies. A rather ugly stain the apparent victors have left out of the historical narrative.

35
posted on 10/15/2012 11:46:16 PM PDT
by Sheapdog
(chew the meat and spit out the bones)

Solzhenitsyn recounts in the Gulag Archilpelago that all the Russian soldiers that traveled West and experienced the fruits of the West were for the most part rewarded with a rewarding stay in their archipelago. How’s that for bringing them home? Communism has a sick way of rewarding it’s unwitting sheep and those caught in it’s grasp. The people wouldn’t have cried to bring ‘em home if they knew what was awaiting. But I regress many did and during Eisenhower’s Operation Keelhaul hundred’s of thousands chose death while US soldiers rounded them up for repatriation as we even broke many promises to our allies. A rather ugly stain the apparent victors have left out of the historical narrative.

Operation Keelhaul is described in detail in Robert Welch’s infamous and contested book Eisenhower.

36
posted on 10/15/2012 11:47:43 PM PDT
by Sheapdog
(chew the meat and spit out the bones)

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